CLOSE RELATIONSHIPS AS INCLUDING OTHER IN THE SELF

The cognitive significance of being in a close relationship is described in terms of including other in the self (in Lewin's sense of overlapping regions of the life space and in James's sense of the self as resources, perspectives, and characteristics). Experiment 1, adapting Liebrand's (1984) decomposed-game procedures, found less self/other difference in allocations of money to a friend than to a stranger, regardless of whether Ss expected other to know their allocations. Experiment 2, adapting Lord's (1987) procedures, found that Ss recalled fewer nouns previously imaged with self or mother than nouns imaged with a nonclose other, suggesting that mother was processed more like self than a stranger. Experiment 3, adapting self-schema, reaction-time procedures (e.g., Markus, 1977), found longer latencies when making "me/not me" decisions for traits that were different between self and spouse versus traits that were similar for both, suggesting a self/other confusion with spouse.